This space is for friends, family and sworn enemies to convene, commiserate and bask in the dim glow of our most deficient public figures. Hopefully we can have some laughs along the way. If we don't, it's your fault.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Pregnancy Today - According to Google

Among the top ten lists we are flooded with at the end of every calendar year, is a list of the most searched items on the most popular search engines.

Through this data, we get some representation of what people who use the Internet (AKA nearly everyone on Earth) is interested in and, extrapolating further, where we are at as a society.

This is where our minds are at world.

According to Business Insider, the most popularly searched items on Google last year were:

Google uses algorithms utilizing similar popularity data for its news searches too. Search for a term in Google News and Google will scour blogs and news outlets across the Internet to find where the term is used most prominently.

With that in mind, I thought I'd take a look at the top Google News responses for "pregnancy" today.

The results were not mixed. They weren't ambiguous. They were just sad.

Guess which one is Snooki.

First up was "Snooki." My friends and family in Canada might not know exactly what a "Snooki" is; frankly, I'm not too sure either. Apparently, it is human, it's on a reality TV show on MTV and it's now pregnant.

The second most popular result was also a reality TV staractress person. This one hails from the show "16 and Pregnant," a program about what it's title says. Kudos to the subject of this story as she was arrested for shoplifting....wait for it.....a pregnancy test. And in addition to the glory that awaits all single moms, she's now officially a lock for the "Most Ironic Crime Committed by a Reality Show Cast Member" award.

While the first two results might be amusing the third one is officially not. This story is about a British woman who so feared gaining weight during her pregnancy that she became anorexic.

Eye-yi-yi. That one speaks for itself and is, I hope, proof that news search results viewed on a daily basis offer little insight about society. They are a small sample, a picture of a moment and not reflective of any greater trend.